Got up and out of the house around 8. It had been such a great trip. DIane is staying one more week to take care of Nova.. and help ut Gabe with some house stuff as he write his thessis.. He’s gettign close ! Super proud of him .

.. 
Gabe drove me to the airport.. and I worked my way back across the country uneventfully

In Chicago I ran into my good friends Zach and Max from Hackclub. they were just coming back from a hackathon in .. Toronto (I think ?) . 
We had a great time catching up about their hackathon and the PCB workshop diane and I had just run in san diego.   Those guys are soooo inspiring with all they do in the ‘you ship, we ship’ programs in hackclub
. We flew back toe BTV on the same plane 

caught a nice sunset through the plane window as we left chicago

Zach and max were kind enough to drive me back tot h e house since I didnt have a car.. it gave us more time to talk which was fantastic !

It’s so great to be home !
nite all. nite sam
-me

It rained all day today in Portland.. which is normal for this time of year. .. People here just ignore the rain so we did too. ISpeaking of rain.. here are some nterestign factoids we looked up while in San diego.. WHile San diego  gets only 15 inches of rain a year, Portland gets 35 inches of rain. while burlington vt gets 42 inches per year.. Houston (where i’m from) is the rainiest city in all of the US with 50 inches a year !) 

Anyway.. we took a nice dog run tot he park… and the hardware store in the drizzle.. and it felt great !  We loved seeing the flowers !

also fun to soak up portland culture from bumper stickers 

Tonight we went out to Mirasata, a vegan sri lankan place up the street from Gabe.. might be my favorite resturant in portland. Parmis joined us too which was fun.. shes super nice

THen we headed to Movie madness to get a movie.. I love that place.. they  claim to be the biggest surviving video store in the us.. they have a great collection of movie memorabilia too.. like this  dress that michelle yeoh wore  in the best movie ever:  everything, everywhere all at once !

we settled on the movie ‘Contact’ with jodie foster.. such a great movie. Its based on the book by Carl Sagan.. My brother has a theory that sagan wrote the story after being  taken across space to meet another species.. and thats how he contracted the rare cancer that eventually killed him. 

I had some more nova time which  I needed before going tomorrow. 

 

Also got another mini concert !

Heading home tomorrow
Its been a really great visit.. !

nite all, nite sam
-me

Another greta day in portland. I spent much of it doing small projects around Gabes hose… Anything that can lighten his load as he finishes up hi these. 

Jobs included repairing a bairly reparabe silverware drawer,  replacing all the light bulbs in teh kitchen, living room, ceiling fans and installing a new dimmer, adding a new toilet paper roll

Its nice to feel useful  

We had a great dinner at Norah.. a vegan thai place in the next block from gabe (there are at least 4 thai restaurants in just a few blocks from gabe).. Gabe ran into two peple from his graduate program t dinner.. you know he’s grown roots here .. 

after. dinner we came hpew to this image on the camera we have on our house.   Check out that moon .lThe  boys each have a screen that shows thenm the house 24 hours a day so they dont get homesick 🙂 

More tomorrow,

nite all, nite sam
-me

Great to be in portland with Gabe. I worked much of the day with a few meetings and some  code collaboration. 

Diane and I took Nova to Laurelhurst for a run and some ball fetching.
We really need this doggy dose ! We love both our grand doggies

nice to get an early dose of spring as well !

After work, we had some of gabes friends over for dinner. Mel , shawn  and Pip, Henry, and Gabes very awesome mandolin friend Parmis. Dinner was pasta primavera, salad, carrot cakes (!!!!) 

one treat from tonight was gettign to hear gabe and parmis play .. gabes been playign for a year.. parmis has only been playing mandolin for 2 months (!!!!) .. though she plays violin.. which is almost the same instrument plus or minus frets. 

Another treat was today was my nephew Jakes 18th birthday.. My seeeeester mary got both sides of the family on the phone to sing happy birthday.. we were all over the place.. I was in portland. max in santa fe, mom jake and his fam were in minneapolis, shawn was in chattanooga, chris and berto were at a mcdonalds, billy was in melbourne australia.. all the liddicoats were spread out too.  It was a very happy chaos . Jake made a nice short speach thanking weveryone for being part of the call and part of his life 

Happy birthday Jake.. you’re an amazing guy.. super glad to be your uncle hoho. 

The night finished strong with a total lunar eclipse..! .. we’d hear d about it.. but it wasnt until gabe came back in the house and told us all to come outside.. It was amazing !!! Its’ called the blood moon because of its crazy red color !

Super fun day !!!!!!   Very glad to be here !

nite all. nite sam
0me